Adobe Super Resolution: Turn your 25-megapixel sensor into a 100-megapixel camera

Saturday 3 April 2021, 14:41 by Nando Harmsen | 8,001 views | 8 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

The latest update to Adobe Camera Raw, or ACR, adds Super Resolution to the programme. It makes your photo four times larger while retaining detail. In this video, I show you how it works and what to look out for.

With all the clever software available these days, some remarkable things are possible. One of them is increasing the resolution without the quality of the photo deteriorating much, if at all.

The latest update to Adobe Camera Raw adds Super Resolution to the raw converter. It makes the photo four times larger. In other words, the number of pixels along both the long and short sides is doubled.

This turns a 24-megapixel photo into an impressive 96-megapixel photo. If you have a camera with a 50-megapixel sensor, Super Resolution turns the photo into a staggering 200-megapixel image.

But it has the biggest impact on low-resolution JPEG images. A 1-megapixel photo becomes a 4-megapixel image with Super Resolution, which is enough to make a 20x30 print while retaining the quality. Provided the JPEG photo did not have too much compression.

How does it work?

The option works in the Adobe Camera Raw plug-in, which you can open through Bridge or Photoshop. It contains the Enhance option, which you can find by right-clicking. Super Resolution is enabled automatically.

You do need to make sure that you do not use the Camera Raw filter in Photoshop. Super Resolution is not available there. You can set Photoshop to open the plug-in instead of the filter.

Adobe Camera Raw makes it easy to make your file four times larger.

Adobe Camera Raw saves the Super Resolution file as a DNG file, allowing you to make further edits without any problems. If you have already made edits, it is wise to check them again. A higher resolution affects certain edits.

It does not matter whether you edit your photo before applying Super Resolution or afterwards. Both are possible, and the result does not depend on this.

The details are retained, and you can edit your photo either before or afterwards.

Limitations

There are two limitations. You can only apply Super Resolution to a photo once. This makes the photo four times larger. The programme will not accept a second attempt.

You can of course save the Super Resolution file as a TIFF or JPEG and enlarge it again. But doing so a second time will certainly not improve the quality.

The second limitation is the size of the Super Resolution file. This file cannot be larger than 65,000 pixels on its longest side, or 500 MB. The chances of reaching these dimensions are small, but that is the limit.

The quality of Super Resolution also depends on your source material, of course. Here you can see the difference between a 100% crop of the Super Resolution image and the original photo.

Only available in ACR for now

For now, Super Resolution can only be used in Adobe Camera Raw. But it will soon also become available in Adobe Lightroom Classic. It is just a matter of waiting until then.

Although I have included a few examples that are covered in the video, trying it yourself is best. Only then will you see how well Super Resolution can work.

The alternative

The obvious alternative to Adobe Super Resolution is Topaz Labs Gigapixel AI, which has already been on the market for some time. I have not been able to compare this software side by side, but from what I have seen, both pieces of software produce very good results.

Which one is best depends more on the photo being enlarged than on one of them being objectively better.

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About the author

Nando Harmsen has been photographing for more than 40 years. He specialises in wedding photography and landscape photography. Nando also gives talks, workshops, masterclasses and photo trips, and regularly reviews new and interesting equipment.

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8 comments

Stefan ALEN wrote on Tuesday 6 April 2021 at 12:18 | reply
Very interesting feature, but what exactly is the difference compared to the "image size" function that I have used until now.
I mainly mean in terms of the result.
Thanks in advance. Stefan.
Translated from Dutch.

Nando wrote on Tuesday 6 April 2021 at 14:07 | reply
@Stefan:
It is the way the new pixels are created. With image size you do enlarge the photo, but the quality deteriorates drastically if you enlarge the photo 4x. With super-resolution, that deterioration is much less or virtually nonexistent. Just try it out yourself and compare them with each other.
Translated from Dutch.

Çois wrote on Tuesday 6 April 2021 at 17:42 | reply
Interesting
PhotoZoom is also a formidable competitor in my experience.
Translated from Dutch.

Henk wrote on Tuesday 6 April 2021 at 19:42 | reply
Clear explanation, Nando.
Don't you do something similar with the 'Smart Object' feature in Photoshop?
Translated from Dutch.

Nando wrote on Wednesday 7 April 2021 at 11:27 | reply
@Çois: I haven't heard of PhotoZoom before. But there are indeed several software packages for enlarging photos, even online. You would have to test how good they are if you're looking for something like that.
The advantage of this super-resolution is that it's included with your Adobe account. So it won't cost you anything extra.
Translated from Dutch.

Nando wrote on Wednesday 7 April 2021 at 11:28 | reply
@Henk:
A smart object is something completely different. It's more or less just a collection of layers in a layer. That has nothing to do with enlarging a photo.
But with the help of a smart object and a series of photos, it is possible to create a super-resolution image. You only need about twenty photos of the same object for that.
Translated from Dutch.

Will Gillemot wrote on Thursday 8 April 2021 at 12:19 | reply
on Mac the right mouse button doesn't work ?
Translated from Dutch.

Nando wrote on Thursday 8 April 2021 at 13:09 | reply
@Will:
I don't have a Mac, but I think it should work there too. You can also find the option by clicking the icon with the three dots on the right-hand side, or by using the Command-Shift-D keyboard shortcut.
Translated from Dutch.

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